Machine for printing in one or more colors.



No. 664,|l9. Patente d Dec. l8, I900.

a. E. BUU-VET & E. A. m.

MACHINE FOR PRINTING IN ONE OR MORE COLORS.

(Application filed Jan. 12, 1898.)

(No Model.) X 3 Sheets I18 I.

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'Patented Dec. I8, I900. a. E. BOUVET & E. A. FIX. NIAOHINE FOR PRINTING IN ONE OR MORE COLORS.

(Application filed Jan. 12, 1898.)

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(No Model.)

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No. 664,H9.

G.' E. BOUVET & E. A. FIX. MACHINE FUR PRINTING IN ONE OR MORE COLORS.

, (Application filed Jan. 12, 1898.)

(No Model.)

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UNTTn STATES FFICE HATENT GASTON ELIE BOUVET AND EDOURD ALBERT FIX, OF PARIS, FRANCE.

MACHINE FOR PRlNTlNG IN ONE OR MORE COLORS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 664,119, dated December 18, 1900.

Application filed January 12, 1898. serial No. 666,416. (N0 od T0 at whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, GASTON ELIE BOUVET and EDOURD ALBERT FIX, citizens of the Republic of France, residing in Paris, France, have invented Improvements in Machines for Printing in Colors, of which the following is a specification.

In typography several colors may be printed at the same time with one and the same machine, as the design corresponding to each color is in relief on the printing-cylinder, and consequently not one of the designs need touch the color freshly printed by the precedin g cylinder or cylinders. In lithography this practice is impossible. The design to be reproduced is not in relief on the stone or zinc, and therefore if a second printing-cylinder is pressed against the paper or fabric before the color deposited thereon from the first printing-cylinder is entirely dry this first color will be transferred to the second printing-cylinder, so that after one complete turn of the second cylinder the two colors will be mixed and no design will be produced. It is therefore evident that if it is desired to print by lithography a design in two, three, or more colors it will be necessary to pass the paper or fabric to be printed two, three, or more times through the machine and to wait be tween each passage until the color previously printed becomes entirely dry, which may re quire from two to three days. Therefore it is necessary to provide in rotary lithographic machines a special construction which permits of the registry of the colors one with another, so that a second color shall fall exactly over the first already printed, and then a third on the second, and so on. To obtain this result, it is evidently necessary that at each passage through the machine the paper or fabric must be presented to the printing-cylinder exactly as it was presented the first time when it received the impression of the first color, or, in other words, it is necessary that each time the paper or fabric enters the machine to be printed it must occupy exactly the same position in relation to the printing-cylinder which it occupied during the preceding operation. When the machine is not rotary and only sheets of paper or fabric are to be printed, this registering can be obtained by first piercing holes in each sheet to be printed and by arranging on the machine needles or pins, termed points, fixed in position and intended to enter these holes. When these points have entered the holes, the position of each leaf is fixed in relation to the printing-cylinder, so that in printing each color the sheet has to be again fixed upon the points by one or two workmen called pointers, who for this operation avail themselves of the stoppage of the printing-cylinder. In a continuous rotary printing-machine there is no stop. The printing cylinder or cylinders turn at a constant speed, and the paper or fabric which is being printed moves constantly without stopping and without retarding. It is therefore necessary that the points move with a speed exactly equal to that of the paper or fabric and in the same direction. Moreover, if the impression is continuous that is to say, if it is made upon a web of paper or fabric of indefinite length-this band may be considered as a series of sheets juxtaposed one after the other, and each of these supposed sheets will successively register Wit-h the printing cylinder or cylinders independently of that which precedes and of that which follows it. The length of each of these supposed sheets will evidently be the length of the design to be printed, or, in other words, the distance between one of these points, indicating a first sheet, and the next point, indicating a second sheet, will be exactly equal to the length of the design to be printed.

To illustrate our invention, we have shown and described it as applied to a continuous lithographic machine which we have explained in detail; but it will be understood that our invention is also applicable to any other system of continuous lithographic machine.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 represents diagrammatically a side elevation in section of a printingmachine provided with our improvements. Fig. 2 is a view taken on line 2 2 of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a longitudinal section, and Fig. 4 is a plan, of one of the registering cross-pieces with adjustable points. Fig. 5 is a transverse section of the said cross-piece, representing it as mounted on its carrying-chain and passing over the feed-cylinder.

Referring to Fig. 1, this printing-machine is composed of three cylinders of the same diameter. The central cylinder A is a pressure-cylinder, and the cylinders A and A are the printing-cylinders. Each of these latter cylinders is furnished on one half of its periphery with a zinc Z Z or other metallic sheet, on which the design to be printed is reproduced by the ordinary lithographic methods. The other half of each cylinder A A constitutes an inking or color table which receives the ink from the inking-roller Q through the medium of a transfer-roller Q in the ordinary manner. The ink is distributed on the color-table by the distributing-rollers K and then carried from the colortable to the zinc by the inkingrollers L. This arrangement is completed, as usual, by moistening-rollers J, which wet the zinc before the inking. The fabric or paper destined to receive the impression is designated throughout its path by the letter X. It is unwound from a roller E and then travels in the direction of the arrows, Fig. 1, being suitably guided between rollers O C and over a guiding-dome F to the cylinders A A A It then passes between the cylinders A and A around the lower half-circumference of the pressure-cylinder A and between the cylinders A and A It then follows a path the reverse of that which it followed from the spool E to the cylinders A A A and passing back over the upper dome F it is rolled up on the receiving-spool E. It is to be noted that in the type of continuous lithographic machine here represented by way of example each of the printingcylinders A A prints upon the continuous web sections or portions of the design separated by blank spaces of equal length. The respective positions of the zines Z Z on the cylinders A A are such that the impressions from the two cylinders alternate with each other on the continuous band, and consequently the cylinder A prints the blank spaces left between the impressions from the cylinder A, so that as the web leaves the second cylinder it contains an unbroken or continuous impression.

The system of traveling points forming the main feature of the present invention is constituted, essentially, by a series of cross-pieces D, provided with points cl, Figs. 3 to 7, which cross-pieces, arranged at equal distances from each other, are secured at their extremities to two endless chains 61 having a continuous movement imparted to them opposite the vertical portion of the path of the paper or fabric X on leaving the spool E. (See Fig.1.) To make this quite clear, suppose that each of the printing-cylinders has a circumference of two meters. Each cylinder will print on the endless web designs of one meterin length, separated by intervals also one meter in length, which are filled by the impressions of 7 equal length made by the other printing-cylas a series of sheets each a meter long con nected one after the other and printed alternately by one and the other cylinder.. The points that would insure the registering of these sheets must therefore be brought opposite the band at every meter, and, moreover, they must travel with its speed and in its direction of movement. This has been accomplished, as described, by affixing these points d upon endless chains (1", to which is imparted a speed equal to the circumferential speed of the printing-cylinder and by placing these points on the chains at a distance of one meter apart from axis to axis. If then we give to our endless chain (1 a length equal to an exact number of metersfour meters, for instanceand if we arrange four points equally spaced at a meter apart from axis to axis and then drive this chain by transmission-gearing connecting it to the cylinder A, so as to communicate to it a lineal speed equal to the circumferential speed of the printing-cylinders, we shall be certain that these points will travel with the speed of the fabric or paper in the machine and that they will present themselves before the fabric or paper every .time it moves forward one me ter. It will be understood that this arrangement is duplicated in the sense that there are two chains d parallel to each other and alike placed on opposite sides of the machine, so as to point the web of paper or fabric on both edges, and the path of the chains (P, which we have represented as vertical, may equally well be oblique or horizontal or above, below, or at the side of the pressure-cylinder A. That being understood, let us suppose, in order to make the principle of our invention clear, that we feed into the rotary printing-machine a blank web of paper X, causing it to follow the path represented--that is to say, causing it to rise opposite the chain of points (1 then to pass between the rollers O and C, then between the rollers c and c, and finally between the cylinders A A A As soon as the machine is put in operation the first point d will make a small hole in the paper on the edge of the web, and then the second point at will make another small hole, situated at a meter from the first, since we have supposed the distance between the consecutive points to be equal to a meter. Then (1 u ring the print-ing of the first color our arrangement of moving points will have automatically pierced the edges of the web of paper a hole at each meter counted on the length of the web. This first impression ended and the color entirely dry, the web of paper will be unrolled from the spool E and rewound onto a spool E for the second passage of this paper X through the machine in order to proceed to the impression of the second color. If then the operators during this second passage cause the points to penetrate into the same holes which had been pierced V in the preceding passage, it is clear that during the whole of this operation the paper will constantly reach the point of impression between A and A, as it did the first time, and that consequently the design of the second color to be printed will fall exactly in place on the design of the first color already printed upon X. In order that this second color shall register on the first, it is sufficient then that the operators should cause all the points to enter one after the other into the holes pierced in advance on each side of the band X. The same practice will obviously apply to the register of a third color on the second, and so on, so that for the impression of a design in a given number of colors in this continuous rotary printing-machine the paper or fabric will be passed that number of times through the machine in such a way that the points will be caused to penetrate the same holes that number of times and the register of that number of colors will be insured throughout the length of the web of paper or fabric. To render these holes perforated by the points still more visible on the web of fabric or paper, one can mark, by means of a lithographic crayon, on the printing-cylinder A the precise point where the first of these holes encounters said cylinder and then on the printing-cylinder A the point where it is encountered by the second of these holes. The other holes passing over these same points will be charged with color on their edges, and we will thus obtain a series of register-points at a distance of one meterfrom each other and which will coincide with the holes in such a manner as'to render them easily seen, and thus facilitate the task of the operators who have to fit them onto the points of the chain at a second, third, or other passage.

The arrangement of points represented in the drawing, comprises two endless chains d 01 passing around the toothed wheels d d 61 01 Fig. 2, united in pairs by shafts (Z d. The motion is imparted to,. these chains by the upper toothed wheels d in such a way that the speed of the endless chains shall be equal to that of the fabric or paper that is to say, equal to the circumferential speed of the three cylinders A A A For this purpose the shaft 0P has fixed to it a bevel-wheel 0 gearing with another bevelwheel 0 fixed on a shaft 0 Figs. 1 and 2, the opposite end of which carries a bevelwheel 0 gearing with the bevel-wheel c geared through the wheels c c to the toothed wheel A on the impression-cylinder A and of the same diameter as this latter. If preferred, the described mechanism may be actuated from oneof the cylinders A A Between the toothed wheels d d is fixed on their shaft 61 a roller. C, serving to guide the paper and having one or more longitudinal grooves to receive the cross-pieces with their points,aswillbeexplained. Thelowertoothed wheels 0P (Z fixed to the shaft 01 serve simply to guide and give tension to the chains which turn the Wheels by their movement. They need not therefore receive any other driving. The endless chains (1 d carry at asuitable distance apart,determined as described above, the cross-pieces with points, each of which is constructed as follows: Each cross-piece is composed of two rods (1 and d Figs. 3 and 4. The rod (1 is connected to rod (i by headed bolts (i passing freely through holes in rod d and screwed into rod d, and springs (1 tend to press the rods apart as far as the heads of the bolts will allow. The rods d may be fixed to each of the chains at its extremities in any suitable manner. For this purpose the rod may be prolonged by two axes (1 serving to unite two links of the chain 01 The needle-points d are mounted in slides d Figs. 3 and 4, which can be fixed on therod d by means of bolts d passing through longitudinal grooves formed in the said rod. The head of each bolt (1 is oblong, and its smallest dimension corresponds to the width of the groove in the rod (1 so that to mount the slides 61 it is sufficient to introduce the heads of the bolts into the groove of the rod in the position represented at the left in Figs. 3 and 4 and then to turn the said head ninety degrees, as shown at the right-hand side in Figs. 3 and 4. The rod d also has longitudinal grooves of a width corresponding to the width of the slides d so that the latter can be moved in these grooves and fixed at any suitable point of the cross-piece. This construction permits the points to be placed at a distance apart corresponding to the width of the paper or fabric, which width may vary. It is evident that this construction of pointing mechanism may occupy any suitable position with relation to the printing-cylinders without being modified in principle and that any number of cross-pieces carrying the points may be used from two up, provided the distance from axis to axis between these points shall always be equal to the length of the design to be printedthat is to say, to the half-circumference of the printing-cylinders or to one of its submultiples.

We claim as our invention 1. In a printing-machine, the combination of continuous rotary impression and printing cylinders with a registering mechanism to guide the web through the machine a plurality of times in the same position relative to the printing-cylinder, the said mechanism being apart from the said cylinders and comprising cross pieces provided with points adapted to be fixed at variable distances apart on the said cross-pieces, and means for moving the said cross-pieces at a speed exactly equal to that of the web of paper or fabric passing through the printing-machine.

2. In a printing-machine for printing on a continuous band of paper or fabric, the combination of a printing-cylinder, with registering mechanism to guide the band through the machine, a plurality of times in the same position relative to the printing-cylinder, the said registering mechanism consisting of endsaid crosspieces consisting of two slotted rods, screws connecting the rods and springs 15 to separate them, and guides provided with points and adapted to be adjustably secured in any part of the slots of the said rods, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof We have signed our 20 names to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

GASTON ELIE BOUVET. EDOURD ALBERT FIX.

Witnesses:

CHARLES DONY, EDWARD P. MAOLEAN. 

